


because it is my heart

by voicedimplosives



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dreams, Dreams Are Weird Don't You Think - Freeform, Dreamsharing, Especially Dreams Where All the Force Ghosts Keep Throwing Out Pro-Tips, F/M, Force Ghost(s), Grief/Mourning, The Force, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 01:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17315219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives
Summary: Following Leia’s funeral, a heartsore Rey is full of doubts. What she needs is sleep. What she finds waiting for her in her dreams—who the Force brings to visit her—will help her make her peace with the past, and forge a path towards the future.





	because it is my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Many, many thanks to the very generous people who helped me with this fic: [tiffany](http://armltagehux.tumblr.com/), [kat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryminded/pseuds/delia-pavorum), and [chel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies) ❤
> 
> And many thanks to the mods of the [Reylo Charity Anthology](https://reylocharityanthology.tumblr.com/), for all their hard work and for the beautiful collection they put together.

The funeral draws on for hours. In attendance are the esteemed academics of the Alderaanian diaspora, the nobility—displaced but still proud—the generals, the admirals and vice-admirals who learned so much from her tutelage and example. All want to speak their piece.

 

Then, many of the less elite members of the Resistance stand up. They share some memory of a time when _she_ , former royalty—imbued with the light but grounded in the earth, who never missed a step and never gave in to despair—deigned to speak to _them_ , her commonfolk subordinates.

 

A sarcastic remark here, a curt word of praise there. A gentle offering of assurance, when morale ran low. Never condescending or contemptuous.

 

They were mostly ephemeral, fleeting transactions, yet these people stand and speak now at her funeral with tears on their faces, because they _remember_ —because she will be impossible to forget.

 

 _Would I be impossible to forget?_ Rey wonders, as she listens. She knows the answer; hasn’t she already been forgotten, by the two people who brought her into this world?

 

She can think of one person who has not forgotten her, and whom she has not forgotten. She does not dare speak his name, here at his mother’s funeral. She does not even permit herself to think it. Today is not for him. He is not here, though he should be _—_ this is what she reminds herself.

 

Today is for Leia, daughter of Vader and Skywalker and Amidala and Organa and Naboo and Alderaan. Inheritor of misfortune and heartbreak, skilled weaver of mourning braids. The light that sparked the fire, again and again.

 

Mother to them all.

 

Rey, numbed by the icy depths of her grief, maintains a neutral expression when the eulogies finally finish and the members of the Resistance return, shambling, to their starships.

 

Her friends pull her towards a recreation chamber to share a few drinks and she trails along behind them, preoccupied. _Could I ever burn so brightly?_ _Could I keep the flame alive? Could he?_ She does not give voice to these doubts. Like all the doubts that have come before, she buries them deep in the sands of her soul.

 

 _There is no time for second guessing,_ she tells herself.

 

In hushed tones her friends speak to each other, couching their sorrow in sentences that begin with ‘ _Remember how...?_ ’ and ‘ _Were you there the time—?_ ’ Then they look to Rey. _Why?_ she puzzles. She already knows, though: there is a gaping wound in the heart of their ragtag Resistance, and they are hoping that Rey can stretch herself to fit the circumference of that wound, to staunch the bleeding.

 

But Rey, who has spent so many years losing things she could not afford to do without… Rey cannot be this for them. Not now. She gives these friends—Finn, and Rose, and Kaydel, and Poe—a tight smile, which wobbles only a little.

 

She makes her excuses.

 

“Of course, Rey,” says Poe, his dark eyes shining with unspoken empathy. “Get some sleep. It's been a tough couple days.”

 

“Sleep,” she echoes, head bobbing agreeably. “Yes. I think I'll go to sleep.”

 

When she reaches her bunk—her mercifully silent, spartan bunk—Rey curls up under the thin, faded bedding of her sleeper and does just that.

 

. . .

 

She is at Niima Outpost. She knows it before she can even see it—the smell of unwashed bodies and duralloy hulls of starships, baking under Jakku’s cruel morning sun, is unmistakable. Rey can even smell the _desert_ , hot dry winds carrying the scent in from the Goazon Badlands. She hadn't realized the desert had a smell, not until she left it.

 

Like carrion and prickly shrubs and things left behind. Forgotten.

 

As with the twisting of a pair of electrobinoculars, the blurry taupe and rust-hued world around her sharpens, coming into focus. When all becomes solid and clear, she cannot contain her gasp of surprise.

 

In the distance, Han Solo stands under the _Millennium Falcon_ , which occupies its old place in the outpost’s scrapyard. He's tinkering with the quad laser cannon, a turbowrench in his hand, and after a quick look around to see if anyone is watching, he begins whacking at the cannon with his wrench.

 

She walks towards the ship. He looks how she remembers him—tall, rangy and wiry, silver haired, a few days of grey stubble covering his cheeks. Tired, but not without a few tricks left up his sleeve.

 

“Has that _ever_ worked for you?” Rey asks, as she nears him.

 

Han glances over at her with a smirk, then snorts. “Never made it worse.”

 

“Are you real?” she blurts out. Immediately, she wishes she could take it back. What if he isn’t? Does she really want to know? Is this not _her_ dream? Shouldn’t she be allowed to dictate what is real and what isn’t?

 

Perhaps she deserves it when he gives the most Han response possible—an exasperated _how-should-I-know?_ kind of look, and a shrug.

 

Unbidden memories of the moment his heart was pierced by his son's lightsaber come rushing up to the surface. Sounding choked, she says, “I wish you were.”

 

Another blurted sentiment, which she regrets the moment it is vocalized. Chagrin and sorrow make her wince but she steels herself, taking nothing back; this is, she senses, the last she will ever see of Han Solo. Even as she watches, he makes his final adjustments on the laser cannon. He is preparing for a great adventure—his final one, one that Rey is not yet ready to embark upon herself. It could be a long time, an eternity even, before they meet again. So she forces herself to speak this indelible truth:

 

“I _miss_ you.”

 

Han heaves another sigh, deep and slow. He thinks his thoughts, and Rey imagines she can see traces of them in the subtle grimace that pulls at his lips. _You barely even knew me,_ he might say; she expects him to say it, and it would be fair if he did. It would be the truth. But he doesn’t—for a beat, he says nothing at all. He simply stares at her, eyes wide, looking struck by something—the raw tinge of loneliness in her words, maybe.

 

“Yeah,” he huffs at last, hoarser than usual. “I miss you too, Rey.”

 

It’s too much. She looks away from him then, leans over the boarding ramp to peer up inside the ship.

 

“Where’s Chewie?” she asks, voice thin and tight.

 

Before Han can answer, Leia emerges from the _Falcon_ ’s inner corridor. She walks with comportment, her lined face serene, wearing the same sweeping black velvoid gown she’d been dressed in when they laid her body upon her wooden funeral pyre.

 

Then Leia is walking down the ramp towards Rey.

 

Leia, whose body they burned just a few hours ago.

 

Leia, who died old and sick and tired and bereft of any of the men in her life whom she loved.

 

Leia, the mother Rey never had.

 

“He won't be here for a while yet,” says Leia, stopping only an arm’s length from Rey.

 

She could cry, feels it in her throat and behind her eyes. The sight of that tired smile, the elegant twist of her pewter-streaked hair, her dignified bearing. Leia jerks her chin, her dark eyes sliding to some distant point behind Rey, so she turns to follow the older woman’s gaze. The surrounding junker ships and far-off marketplace are dusty, grimy, hot—just as Rey remembers them—but she doesn’t spy the Wookie’s looming, hirsute profile anywhere.

 

Han barks out a gruff laugh. “Those Wookies just live on and on like no one's waiting for ‘em on the other side. Take care of him for me, will ya?”

 

Registering something different about his voice—it’s still deep, but absent the gravelly, frayed quality that comes with age—goosebumps erupt across her flesh. She whirls back around. And she realizes, when her eyes land on him—

 

He is a young man now. The gusting breeze from the Badlands ruffles his sandy blonde hair and his white shirt pulls taut across a strong, youthful torso. His nose is still crooked, though, and the smile he gives her is still that same lopsided Solo smirk.

 

And when she shifts to study Leia, she finds her similarly altered. Before her stands a young princess, her face not yet weathered by time or gravity or tragedy. She is slender, a lithe woman whose spotless white gown flows gracefully to the Jakku sand beneath her booted feet. Her lustrous chocolate brown hair is coiled around her head in overlapping, interwoven braids.

 

“Rey,” she says, in her brassy young woman's voice. She smiles warmly and takes Rey's hands. “I am… so glad, that you came to see us off.”

 

Rey cannot speak through the lump in her throat. She recalls the beautiful eulogies given at the funeral that very afternoon, and tries to dredge up words that will do justice to the love she feels for her leader, her General, her… Leia. Instead, all that comes out is a squeaky, stammered, “No—you can’t—can't you come back? Can't the Force bring you back? Leia, I can't _do_ this without you—”

 

Leia’s hands squeeze hers. “You can. And you must.”

 

She lifts those hands to Rey’s shoulders and gently pushes until Rey takes the cue to turn once more. There is a tickling sensation as Leia cards her fingers through the loose chestnut-hued tresses that brush over her sternum. The tickling is followed by tugging; Leia has begun to braid.

 

“You must. And you _will_ ,” she says, her firm tone brokering no argument.

 

Rey watches the marketplace in the distance. Human and Teedo and Abednedo alike flit around—trading, buying, selling—a humming hive of vendors’ stalls, sheltered from the harsh sunlight by desert-stained canopies.

 

“With great aplomb, I suspect,” Leia continues, in a gentle murmur.

 

“ _Aplomb!_ ” cries Han. “Listen to her worshipfulness, throwing out thousand credit words, even in the afterlife!”

 

Leia chuckles. Even Rey’s lips twitch, ever so slightly. She feels a final tug on her hair, a light pat on her arm. When she twists back to look, she can’t quite see the intricate plait that Leia has braided, but she can feel it, resting against the nape of her neck. The weight of it is comforting.

 

“Please stay,” she whispers, meeting Leia's gaze. Her voice cracks. “Please don't go away forever. Please come back with me.” She sounds like a plaintive child. Rey hates herself, just a little, for this weakness of hers—this thing for which she is forever begging, despite its futility.

 

Almost as if she can hear Rey's dark thoughts, Leia says, “Hope is not weakness. Love is not weakness. And neither is futile. Never let anyone convince you otherwise. Do you understand?” She presses her thin, curved lips into a stern line.

 

Rey nods, feeling chastened. Leia’s expression softens and Rey sees not the princess or the General, roles that life chose for her, roles that she felt she must inhabit for the greater good—but the mother she _chose_ to be, a role she wanted for herself. Love and pain are visible on her young face; Rey longs to embrace her one last time, if only to ease that pain, and her own.

 

“I wish we could stay, too, but you know we can’t, sweetheart,” Leia tells her, quietly.

 

She nods again. Silent tears burn angry trails down her cheeks.

 

“There, there,” Leia says. “We can’t come back, but there's still someone who _can_ , isn't there? Didn’t Maz tell you that?”

 

Rey says nothing. Even in dreams, she knows that is probably too much to hope for.

 

. . .

 

She blinks. Time passes, the sun rises higher in the sky, the scene changes without warning. Despite not having lifted a foot, she suddenly finds herself near the starship graveyard.

 

Stretching out around her in every direction is a vast plain of shining blackened glass: the Crackle, formed when an Imperial capital ship crashed headlong into the Jakku sands, instantly incerating and melting it for miles. It was during the Battle of Jakku, the final gasp of the Empire’s fight with the Rebellion. She can see the ship’s stern—all that remains of the catalyst for this eerie phenomenon; it rises up like a jagged metallic mountain in the distance.

 

Rey beats back her dismay; she has no love for the Crackle, hates its immense heat and blinding brilliance and the ominous sound it makes when stepped on, the sound which lends it its name.

 

Scanning the horizon, she sees another woman dressed all in white. Unlike Leia, this woman's gown, and the accompanying veil, are made of delicate, pearl-studded lace; it’s a wedding gown. And the woman wearing it—walking towards Rey now, a disquieting 'crunch’ sounding out with every step, disturbing the otherwise still afternoon—she is familiar, although Rey cannot say why or how.

 

“Hello, Rey,” the woman says, once they stand face to face. Her voice is like a sigh, dulcet but clear. “I've been waiting a long time to meet you.”

 

Awestruck by the woman's bridal finery, Rey hazards a glance down at her own shabby, sweat-stained linen garb. She wishes she had the grace of this stranger, who is effortlessly regal, with delicate elfin features offset by a pair of dark, expressive brows and eyes that shine with keen intellect.

 

“Who are you?” she questions, warily. “I don't know you. You're not from here.”

 

The woman smiles, but it's an enigmatic expression _. It could mean anything,_  thinks Rey. _Or nothing._

 

“Senator Padmé Amidala Naberrie, of Naboo,” she answers. “It's nice to meet you at last, Rey.”

 

Rey is befuddled. “Should… I know… you?” It sounds so familiar, that name, she can _almost_ grasp at a memory, there, at the edge of her mind—

 

Again, Padmé smiles. This one—just maybe—is fond, and amused. “I'm Leia's mother,” she explains. “And Luke’s, of course.”

 

Realization stirs. "So you're Ben's—”

 

“Yes,” Padmé interjects. “And the wife of Anakin Skywalker. But also, you should know, a former queen of the planet Naboo. Important in my _own_ right. As are you.”

 

There is a moment of weightlessness; the shock of hearing that name makes her dizzy, makes her stomach swoop threateningly. An odd, hysterical little laugh bubbles up, and she sputters, “Anakin Skywa—you mean—but that's—” Rey shakes her head and changes tacks. “But—you're a queen? And a senator?” The more anyone tells her in this dream, the less Rey feels she understands.

 

“Former. On both accounts, really,” says Padmé, with a weary grimace.

 

And with that, she _does_ understand. “You're dead, too… aren't you?”

 

Padmé nods. “I'm afraid so. But you called me here, and the others as well, so here we have come. For you, Rey.”

 

“How? _Why?_ ” she asks.

 

“Perhaps you need us,” Padmé suggests. “Perhaps there is something you'd like to ask me?”

 

Of course, Rey knows that there is. But surely the questions she has are insulting and childish—far too childish for a woman as grand as this Padmé Amidala. She squints, looking off across the rolling field of glass—gleaming and smooth where it is undisturbed, splintered and crumbling where the creatures of the desert have trespassed.

 

“Do I have a place in all of this?”

 

“Of course,” comes Padmé’s reply, immediate. “Can’t you see it?”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“Oh, Rey. You’re don’t just have a place in all of this… you are the _heart_ of it,” says Padmé, her dark eyes intent and focused on Rey.

 

That can’t be right, can it? _That’s not what your grandson thinks,_ she wants to say. _I’m Nobody of Nowhere,_ she considers saying. _I’m not special,_ she almost says. But what she mumbles is:

 

“What if I’m not… enough? What if I’ve chosen wrong?”

 

Vehemently, Padmé shakes her head. “No. _No_. You are, and you haven’t. Have faith, Rey. Keep hope.”

 

She sighs. “Leia said the same thing.”

 

“My daughter’s very wise. Perhaps she gets that from me.”

 

“I…” Rey hesitates, and a sudden fascination with her boots keeps her eyes glued to them.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I—it’s silly,” she demurs.

 

Padmé's brows knit together. “I assure you it's not, whatever it is.”

 

She takes a deep breath, swallows thickly. “You loved the man who became Darth Vader. I think, I think I could…” Again, she shakes her head. Again, she must ignore her shame, and try to ask. “I—can a person—die?” _From a broken heart?_ “From—losing too much?”

 

Her voice is a small, pitiful thing. It's almost drowned out by the woebegone cawing of a steelpecker that glides in circles on the restless winds, high above their heads.

 

Padmé offers a smile, faint and sad. “See? Not silly,” she assures her. “And to answer your question—a person can, but _you_ won't.”

 

Rey searches her face for traces of duplicity, but she seems to be sincere. “How do you know?”

 

“Because you're the best of us. And you've come so far—you're so close, now.”

 

Thoroughly, she studies Padmé’s sorrowful expression. The woman tilts her head, studying her kind. A queen, a senator, a mother, a wife—all one woman, could she ever hope to contain so much? To be so many things to the people in her life? Rey cannot help but notice that her composure is contradicted by a slight tremor in her clasped hands.

 

“Did _you?_ ” she lets slip, before she can stop herself. Then she winces. Again. Oh, how she regrets it as soon as she's asked—how tasteless and crude she feels, standing before this noble woman.

 

But Padmé doesn’t seem offended. “Die from a broken heart? Yes. And a troubled pregnancy, and a troubled husband. But—yes, it was my ruined heart that failed me worst of all.”

 

“Do you ever wish you’d chosen differently? That you’d lived a safer life?” Even as she speaks, she allows for a stray wish: for once in her life, she wishes she were less tenacious, less bold. But she needs to know. This is important. This is why Padmé has come to her.

 

And Padmé isn't upset by the question. In fact, she gives Rey a truly dazzling smile, eyes shining with obvious affection.

 

“No,” replies the former queen, to the former scavenger. “Never.”

 

. . .

 

With those words spoken, a great desert storm descends upon them. X'us'R'iia—the breath of God—brings with it a great wall of sand that roars from the ground all the way up to the sky. Rey pivots, scanning the vicinity for shelter, and deems the skeleton of the nearest Star Destroyer to be sufficient. She shifts her head to inform Padmé, and is met with only the storm. The woman is gone.

 

 _Dreams_ , Rey thinks. _And the Force. Together, there's just no telling what will happen._

 

She begins to move, except… when she looks back to the starship, she finds herself no longer out on the Crackle, but instead wandering through the sacred village of Tuanul. But there's no time to question the abrupt relocation; the punishing winds are driving gritty sand into her eyes, her ears, her nose. She ducks into one of the small earthen huts, pulls the heavy ferrocarbon door shut behind her, then collapses. Left with no other recourse, she leans back against the cool wall and listens to the storm whistle and wail outside.

 

How long she waits in the dream, it's impossible to say. Minutes? Hours? Days? Long enough that the sound of granular battering against the wall of the hut, familiar from her childhood, becomes comforting.

 

Eventually the storm wanes, dissipating into silence. Although it feels as though eons have passed, when Rey steps out of the hut she observes that the sun is still directly overhead—just as it was before.

 

She begins her trek out of the village, towards the Badlands, resigned to the fate of walking back to Niima Outpost. She doesn't get far into the desert, however, before she sees two robed men standing stock-still a ways off, the heat and light from the afternoon sun making their visages jump and waver like reflections on a rippled pond.

 

As she treads closer, she recognizes one of them: it is Master Luke. The other, a serene-looking bearded man, is unknown to her.

 

She also notices that there are two linen-shrouded bodies—one the size of a human man, the other a woman—laid out before them in two shallow uncovered graves.

 

 _No_ , she thinks. _I do not want to see this._ But her feet don’t comply with her will—they carry her inexorably forward, until she can make out the bright shining blue of Luke's eyes and the concerned crease of the stranger's brow.

 

“Please, Master Luke,” she croaks, when she is standing at the foot of the burial site. She looks across the graves to him and his stranger. “Not this. I—have already spent too much time here, in dreams.”

 

“They’re too important to be forgotten, I'm afraid,” says the stranger, and he lowers the cowl of his brown robe to reveal a head of tousled white hair.

 

“Rey, this is Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, my mentor. And Anakin Skywalker's,” says Luke, his gaze as probing as ever. “He wants you tell you something.”

 

“Yes, thank you, Luke,” the elderly man replies dryly, “although I think I _might_ have been able to handle the introduction myself—well, never mind. Rey.” His demeanor shifts from distracted and teasing to serious. “My mistakes helped to create a monster.”

 

“As did mine,” adds Luke.

 

“He's not—” Rey protests, but Luke holds up a hand.

 

“Completely gone? You're right, but I'd forgotten that, until you arrived. I could only see my own folly and arrogance—the darkness of Kylo Ren’s spirit. I'd forgotten who he once was,” he says, voice growing soft with memories. “He was only a monster to me. And a monster to himself.”

 

“But a sweet-natured boy, once,” says Obi-Wan. “He was given my name, you know.”

 

“Yes, alright, but why have you brought me to _them_?” Rey nods at the bodies between them; her parents, although she cannot—will not—say so.

 

“They made mistakes as well. Egregious ones. All parents do and most pay very dearly for it. These two never got a chance,” Obi-Wan notes, sadly.

 

“Yes,” Luke says. “And their mistakes, well—they could have left behind a monster, or blazed a trail that would lead you to becoming one, but… they didn't.”

 

“Instead, they left simply _you_.” Obi-Wan beams at her. “And you created yourself.”

 

His dignified smile, his tone—pride, respect—it makes Rey uncomfortable. She feels unworthy of such an esteemed Jedi Master thinking so highly of her, so she tries to shift the topic.

 

“Will you help him? Ben?” she asks.

 

Luke shakes his grizzled head. “I tried, but—he has to help himself, now.”

 

“You have a great capacity for hope and love, young Jedi,” declares Obi-Wan. He gestures to the graves. “You have even forgiven these poor wretches… and found it in yourself to love them, too.”

 

Rey shifts her weight from one leg to another. Isn’t that the very trait Kylo Ren told her was a weakness? The late afternoon sun has begun its descent towards the horizon as they’ve spoken, shadows pooling grey and cool between the dunes, and she longs to run towards that horizon, that sinking sun; she longs to be free from Obi-Wan’s words and Luke’s gaze.

 

 _Am I still holding onto you?_ she wonders, a silent question for the featureless bodies. _Do I love you, even now?_

 

They offer no answers; they never have.

 

But she knows. As always, the answer rests there in her heart, waiting for her: she cannot deny the truth of Obi-Wan’s words. In a tone bordering on defiant, she retorts, “So?”

 

A sigh, from Obi-Wan. “Perhaps… young Benjamin Solo has learned more from you than he ever could have from us old fools. Perhaps—”

 

Obi-Wan hesitates, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. Luke lays a comforting hand on his mentor’s shoulder, and finishes the thought: “Perhaps _you_ have given him the tools he needs to free himself.”

 

. . .

 

Rey blinks, the tears that spring forth at Luke's words obscuring her vision. When they recede—she is no longer in the desert, but on the severely slanted command deck of an _Imperial_ -class Star Destroyer.

 

Not just any Star Destroyer, either. Rey recognizes the ravaged, dusty remains of this bridge; she is aboard the _Inflictor_. After climbing her way over the astrogation computers and communication hubs, she can just make out Niima Outpost through the viewport, like a toy village planted in the sands down below.

 

“They say you can't go home again. But personally? I think you should.”

 

That gets her hackles up—there are plenty of squatters and scavengers who have picked the _Inflictor_ clean and made it their home. Many of them are unsavory characters.

 

Then she remembers that she's only dreaming. Whoops.

 

She spins, seeking out the source of the voice, keeping one hand on the transparisteel viewport—the ship is just off-balance enough and its floors just smooth enough that if Rey is not careful, she could lose her footing and slide down into the durasteel bulkhead.

 

A young man is sitting in the captain’s chair, elevated on a dais that is just as akimbo as the ship itself. Surreally, he seems unaffected by the lack of level surface—he sits calmly, his legs casually slung over an armrest.

 

He's handsome in a pretty way, with a shiny pink scar running vertically down the right side of his face, just at the outer edge of his eye. His short, dirty blond curls wisp around his ears and neck. He is dressed as Luke and Obi-Wan were, in the simple earth-toned robes of a Jedi.

 

“It would've been better if I had. Gone home again, that is. Or if I'd never left,” he continues, gesturing carelessly as he speaks. “I'd still be a slave, though. Childless and unloved. But I probably would’ve died with a clean conscience… don't you think?”

 

“I don't know,” Rey mumbles. “My life wouldn't be better, if I’d never left Jakku.” She supposes she should ask him who he is, but considering the prevailing theme of her visitations so far—she's pretty sure she already knows.

 

“Hm. That's true. Children of the desert must always leave in order to be free,” he muses. “We all did—me, my son.” He considers her for a moment, eyes locked with hers. “You.”

 

“You're Darth Vader,” Rey asserts—a statement of fact, free of uncertainty.

 

He nods. “I was. Anakin Skywalker, too. Now I'm just cosmic dust and pure energy.”

 

Rey ponders this, her hand growing warm from the late afternoon sun beating against the transparisteel. _It’s strange,_ she thinks, _like a paradox_. His face is smooth, unblemished but for that one scar, yet everything he says is tinged with the wistfulness of a much older man. Choosing her words carefully, she posits, “What made you turn back to the Light?”

 

“The only thing that could,” he says, simply. “Love.”  

 

Rey searches for sarcasm or jest in his words, but finds none. Just honesty, borne from weariness. She thinks of assurances—the ones she has received from Leia, from Han, from Padmé, from Obi-Wan, and from Luke. They should be enough, she should feel confident by now, about her place in this story. She should trust in her own competence, her own abilities, her own importance. And yet… her voice still quavers, just a subtle dip, when she asks:

 

“What if my love… isn't… enough?”

 

Anakin smiles. It transforms his face from brooding and mysterious to boyish, almost impish.

 

“I can see why he likes you—he has good taste, like his grandfather,” he remarks, in lieu of an answer. “The Force has played a hand in all this, y’know. It does that, with us Skywalkers.”

 

She's not sure if she's being insulted or not, doesn't love the teasing lilt in his voice or way his lips twitch with mirth, so Rey shoots back: “Answer my question.”

 

“First answer mine,” he counters. “Did the poor boy offer to burn it all down for you? Did he ask you to rule by his side?”

 

“He—er—it wasn't—”

 

He rolls his eyes. “Course he did. Got that from me, too. Classic Skywalker move. I think _that_ answers your question.”

 

“Were you this snarky when you were Darth Vader?” she snaps, forgetting in her vexation with whom she is chatting. The things she knows he’s capable of.

 

“Even more so, believe it or not. Sadly, my excellent sense of humor was wasted on the Imperial High Command.” Anakin smirks. “The true tragedy of my life.”

 

She chokes a little, trying not to laugh, then decides that turnabout is fair play. “Not Padmé?”

 

_See how you like it, being interrogated about personal, painful subjects._

 

But she gets no rise out of Anakin; he merely shrugs. “There was to be no peace for us in life. There is in death. That was my fault… But I want better than that for my grandson. And for you, desert child.”

 

Rey, not knowing what to say to that, looks out the viewport, where the long rays of the setting sun have set the dunes aflame in shades of gold and amber.

 

“Sun's getting low out there. Shouldn’t you be getting home?” Anakin asks, his voice more solemn now. Soft, almost.

 

“I don't want to go back there, not ever again,” whispers Rey. “There's nothing for me back there—I know that now.”

 

Anakin rises from the chair, and crosses the space between them. He is unaffected by the lack of level flooring, Rey realizes, because he is a semi-translucent ghost, less solid than the others. He glows, slightly, and his feet make no contact with the flextile surface on which she's standing.

 

“Maybe you should. Just once more. Maybe there _is_ something.” He gives her a secretive smile. “Maybe someone's waiting for _you_.”

 

. . .

 

It's as if his words are a decree: between one beat of her heart and the next she finds herself inside the all-too-familiar belly of a broken-down AT-AT.

 

There in one corner is the hammock she made herself from scavenged linens and scrap metal; there is a pile of parts not valuable enough for Unkar Plutt but too interesting to throw away; there is her ancient flight simulator she used to while away the long hours trapped inside by sandstorms; there—

 

Stands Kylo Ren. Ben. Dressed as he was when last she saw him—in a burning throne room aboard the _Supremacy,_ red-armored Praetorian guard lying slain at their feet.

 

 _Are you real?_ she wants to ask. Rey wonders if he'd shrug, as his father did.

 

“Why are you here?” she asks, instead.

 

He says nothing, simply gazes at her—inscrutable as ever—then, in a grief-ridden rasp, he says, “I needed to speak with you. The bond—”

 

She cuts in. “Why, Ben?”

 

There appears to be a war raging inside of him, presumably with multiple factions battling over what he will say next. Something must win out, because he mutters, “No. I just…”

 

But he freezes without finishing his thought, and merely gapes at her instead. His eyes are red rimmed, the alabaster skin under them is irritated, bruised—he's been crying. And now it's right _there_ , what he's thinking, written all over his face, if she's brave enough to read it. He raises a hand as if to reach for her, then drops it.

 

 _If he's brave enough to ask for my help,_ she decides right then, _I will be brave enough to give it._

 

“I need you,” he says, a confession huffed into the still air.

 

“Yes,” gasps Rey. “You do. I think I need you, too, but—what of it? What are you asking of me?”

 

“You ask me, first,” he orders. “Ask me the question you had, when you saw me.”

 

“You heard that?”

 

He nods.

 

Rey takes another deep breath to steady herself. “Ben. Are you real, or am I dreaming this?”

 

“Search your feelings,” he murmurs, then lumbers gracelessly over the uneven, sandy floor of her childhood home. When he is so close she thinks their chests would meet if either were to inhale deeply, she tilts her head back to study his eyes. He says nothing, his shadow-dark irises flicking back and forth between her own.

 

Rey lets her eyes slip shut and tries to sense him in the Force. He's there, his real presence, in all its complicated, churning vivacity.

 

This is just a dream. But… it is also something more. And Ben is here with her. The trueBen.

 

“ _Ben_ ,” she sobs and reaches for him, at the same time that his arms wrap themselves around her waist. She tries to rise up onto her toes, but the sand shifts beneath her feet. It hardly matters, though, because Ben is lifting her, strong arms like a safety belt holding her tight against his body, and then… he lowers his lips to hers.

 

The kiss is clumsy. At first his nose jams into her eye and their teeth clack together comically, their pace is all wrong—too fast, too aggressive, both of them, and then, in an attempt to compensate, too timid—but after several long, awkward moments he swipes his warm tongue past her lips, and she lets him in, explores his mouth then tangles her tongue with his because it's fun, and the sensation is welcome, it warms her. He relaxes his jaw a bit and then…it feels _good._ It’s better than that—it’s perfect. One of his hands slides down to gently knead her behind and she could cry for how profound her joy is, how novel it is to have something like this, sweet and real, all her own, within her grasp—

 

He pulls away from her, although he does not return her to her feet. Instead, he cranes his neck to brush his soft lips across her clavicle, planting whispering kisses as he goes.

 

“On the _Supremacy_ ,” he says, mouthing up the sensitive column of her throat, along her jaw, until his hot breath blows against the shell of her ear. “I didn’t tell you the most important thing.”

 

“What’s that?” Her elbows are probably hurting him, digging into his shoulders, and her fingertips are making a bird's nest of his dark hair, but he offers no complaint. His lips twitch; she feels it on her cheek, where his scarred flesh is pressed against her own.

 

“I love you,” whispers Ben.

 

. . .

 

Rey awakens: limbs splayed, cheeks wet.

 

. . .

 

In the morning, she asks Poe to borrow one of the single-pilot star hoppers. _Official Jedi business,_ she tells him. _Shouldn't take more than a day or two._

 

Rey doesn't even bother with Niima Outpost or the graveyard or the Crackle or Tuanul, once she's dirtside on Jakku—just keeps the starhopper low as she soars over the Sinking Fields and the Badlands, then puts it down once she catches sight of the rusting AT-AT.

 

She takes a minute to secure the ship; with the flick of a few buttons she activates the magnolock mechanism. Then she clambers out over the dunes, each step an exercise in balance, before she practically tumbles back into her makeshift former home. Once inside the AT-AT she gasps; the air is stuffy, hot and still because of the windowless duralloy walls, but that is not the reason.

 

She gasps because he's _there_. Ben. Clad in an emperor's garments: long sweeping cloak, heavy quilted tunic and fitted leather breeches tucked into knee-high leather boots. Gilded hems and Imperial black, all of it. His hands are bare, though, and balled into tight fists.

 

It's so reminiscent of the dream-that-was-not-just-a-dream and Rey is ready to return herself to his embrace, but before she can—

 

He lowers himself to one knee, then bows his head.

 

“I surrender myself to the Resistance.” His voice is a deep velvety rumble; the words stop her dead in her tracks.

 

“Say it,” she whispers.

 

She is met by his silence. His head remains bowed, his long dark locks hide his pale face from her.

 

“ _Please_ ,” Rey cries, louder now, verging on frantic. “It wasn't just a dream, Ben, I know it wasn't so _say_ _it_ —here, in the real world. Do you want me to say it first? I love you. I need you. I want you to come with me. I know my place in this now, and… I want you to see yours. Ben.” He lifts his face to peer up at her. Again, she insists, “Say it.”

 

He clears his throat. “I capitulate my titles,” he sighs, softly. Softer, still: “I love you.”

 

“Again,” she demands, heart thundering against her ribs. She feels like she might faint.

 

“I should have gone with you when you asked,” he says, his voice stronger, emboldened by her reaction. “And I love you.”

 

“Again.”

 

He purses his lips, working his jaw. “You were right. And I love you.” He’s up off his knee; it’s as if he cannot wait any longer for her to release him from his prostration. “I love you—” He is crossing the sandy floor and she is once more secured in the adamantine cage of his arms. “I love you, Iloveyou—” Her feet swing beneath her, and she tugs on the nape of his neck to pull his lips to hers.

 

“You do, don't you?” she asks, laughing through her tears.

 

He kisses her: it’s an answer, exactly the one she’d been searching for.

 

 

**In the desert**

**I saw a creature, naked, bestial,**

**Who, squatting upon the ground,**

**Held his heart in his hands,**

**And ate of it.**

**I said, “Is it good, friend?”**

**“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;**

 

**“But I like it**

**“Because it is bitter,**

**“And because it is my heart.”**

_—Stephen Crane, “In the Desert”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Confession: I wrote this well over six months ago. I think at one point I may have had all the Wookieepedia links I used saved somewhere, but they have since been lost. I apologize for that! But please feel to ask me anything, if you're curious, and I will do my best to point you towards a helpful resource.
> 
> Second confession: I have written and re-written this fic so many times, and I'm still not sure about it. I've done my best. There are parts I'm very proud of, and parts I feel like _could_ be better if only my writing skills were stronger—if only I could put into words the sweeping, vivid vision of this story that I have in my head. Have you ever seen the movie [_The Fall_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_\(2006_film\))? That—along with a few other surreal, dream-inspired movies and books—was sort of my inspiration for this. I'm not really sure if it gets there, if it achieves what I was attempting. But here we are, and this is [barring a few edits I made while uploading] the piece I submitted for the RCA Anthology, so this is what it is. The best is the enemy of the good, right? 
> 
> If you read this far, I love you. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed the story. Part of me hopes we get some soft ending like this in Episode IX. [The other part of me is a whore for tragedy and should be shunned and exiled because she wants a beautiful but heart-wrenching end for all her ships. Blame [_The Last Unicorn_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Unicorn_\(film\)).] I hope you're hanging in there, until December 2019. Or if you're reading this after December 2019, I hope Episode IX was everything you hoped for.
> 
> Okay that's enough rambling confession from me, I think. Thank you for reading! ❤


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